Panda eye for mummy

These few nights, mummy could not really sleep through the whole night, why? Because Ethan always kicking and rolling here and there inside his crib in the middle of the night. It had happened few times through out the night.

First we thought that he has waken up? Well, actually he was still closing his eyes but his legs kept on kicking and the mouth yelled non stop like he wanted to cry. Don't know whether is it because he was having a bad dream or what? Mummy have tried to tuck him to sleep but his leg non stop kicking till mummy hand was hit few times by his kick. So mummy had to ignore his actions until he automatically stopped the kicking things. Then he will wake up and asked for something, when we gave him then he will continue to sleep. Actually mummy did try to give him his stuff during his kicking but was not successful in calming him. Daddy told mummy that maybe Ethan was dreaming that we don't let him do his kpc things so his protests in his dream.

The jobs belong to him

Nowadays when mummy wantsto hang the clothes. Ethan will come to help. He claims that hanging the clothes at the below part belongs to him and upper part belongs to his mother. He enjoys this work.

Besides this job, there are other jobs like watering the plant, open and close the car door etc. All he claimed belong to him. If you don't let him do them, he will immediately cry and protest.

Phonics learning

Mummy had online bought this "Learn to Read" for Ethan. Mummy wants to teach Ethan using the Phonics to read the words. But mummy needs to learn how to use this product before teaching Ethan (actually mummy also doesn't know the Phonics, really ashame ho, just take this opportunity to learn the Phonics for mother as well).

The one Mummy brought were for kindergarten and grade 1 which is meant for children from age 4 to 7. Since Ethan already know how to pronounce the alphabet from A to Z and said some words. Mummy decided that she does not need to buy the baby,toddler and Pre K version for him. Wa jump 3 steps! Crossed the fingers and hope that Ethan will love to learn this or else his parents' money will be flown away.

p/s : Mummy would like to thank sister in law, Veron for handcarrying back these two products, cloth diapers and some gifts for Ethan from US.

Cloth diaper again

Cloth diaper again. People will think that mummy is crazy as Ethan already 29 months and he should have been potty trained. Ya, Ethan has been potty trained but not yet 100% get rid of the diaper. Luckily daddy didn't scold mummy for spending money on buying this luxurious things. With these additional 5 cloth diapers plus the old one, Ethan has 9 cloth diapers in total. Still reasonable la.

Actually mummy had struggled on whether to buy the cloth diaper or not. But few points have just supported mother to decide to go ahead and buy are: -
i) Night time, currently Bumwear cloth diaper cannot withstand overnight so Ethan still wearing Mamy Poko at night time. Even Mamy Poko also only can withstand if Ethan only drink one time milk for whole night. If in the middle or early morning Ethan drinks another round of milk, surely Mamy Poko cannot hold his pee. Sometimes people will say why not change the diaper when Ethan have another round. We didn't change it as Ethan fall asleep again after drinking his milk, his sleep will not be long. Maybe just 30min to 1 hour. Normally when he wakes up, mummy will take off the diaper and washes his bump. Waste another disposable diaper just for this short period. So will consider putting the cloth diaper on him.

ii) Night time between bath time and sleeping time, daddy will take care of him while mother can do other things. Daddy afraid Ethan will pee on our bed if mother didn't let him wear diaper. Sometimes in this short period, Ethan can pee a lot of urine and the diaper will not withstand for him overnight. So planning to let him wear the cloth diaper before he sleeps.

iii) Sometimes Ethan is very cheeky. When mummy asks whether he wants to pee or not, he will shake his head to indidate "No". However, just a minute after mummy walked out the room, he will pee on the floor. He will inform mummy where is the spot that he pee. So sometimes mummy has to accompany him inside the room until he pee then mummy only dare to walk out of the room.

iv) Foresee that Ethan will not be 100% diaper free especially at sleeping time. Mummy only has seen for one time that Ethan didn't pee on the cloth diaper during the nap time. That time was when he had eaten rice and not milk before sleep. The nap time was very short about 2 hour. Recently Ethan nap time can last for 4 hours. So definitely need diaper.

Mummy had noticed that if she let Ethan wear diaper, he will not tell us when he want to do small business. But without diaper he will tell sometimes but not 100% as he will forget to inform especailly during playtime.

Still have long way to go......

Counting everywhere

Today Ethan proved to his parents once again that he has improved his counting skill . Daddy had told mummy that Ethan said there were 10 Barney in the shelf at Toy'R'Us. Mummy didn't believe it as from mummy's point of view, mummy only seen 8 Barney. Then in order to proof whether it was true or not, Mummy walked close to the shelf and found that there were indeed two hiding Barney amongst the 10. Mummy felt sorry for not trusting Ethan. So seems like his everyday counting has really brushed up his skills.

At the nap time, daddy told mummy that he heard Ethan said "FIVE" with the hand stretched out like give me five. We felt funny that he said five while he was still in deep sleep. Daddy said that he must be counting in his dream too.

Mummy didn't mention before that Ethan like to help mother hang the clothes. Before he hands over the hanger, he would like to arrange them nicely on the floor and count then. After mummy requested from him the hangers, he will count again. Don't know whether he knows the logic thinking that after giving away then the number will be less and less (which is minus)?

Crazy actions

Buying more books again this week as parents cannot resist the attraction of cheap sales from "Borders Bookstore". We bought about MYR50+ worth of books for Ethan. For all the books at full price we received 15% discount.

Recently, parents are really crazy about buying books for Ethan as last week we already spent MYR100+ buying books. All of this craziness and mad actions are due to our upcoming relocation to Shanghai. We were told that there is not much choice of children English books there so we just buy them here and ship there. Chinese books should not be a problem in Shanghai. So we will buy Chinese books there.

Taiping Zoo

Finally we went to Taiping Zoo today. We have been saying that we want to bring Ethan to this zoo from middle of last year till now. So today we made it! But unfortunately, Ethan got kiss from mosquito so today he was not handsome as usual. Haha just joking.

We departed quite late about 8.45am and arrived in Taiping about 10.15am. So that time the sun was already up and weather was hot. So before we enter the zoo, mummy let Ethan have 7oz of milk and hope that he will not be hungry during the visit. Ethan is still 2 year plus so the entrance was free and the ticket lady seeing Ethan was so cute gave Ethan a small bag of sweet.

At first Ethan was quite excited seeing all the animals like lizards, monkeys, chimpanzee etc but later he shown tiredness. So he let daddy held him. Normally he would choose to walk by himself. Guessed the hot sun and a lot of walking really made him very tired.

At usual the moment we shown him giraffe, zebra, lion and so on, he likes to count them and told us how many animals. Like 2 giraffes, 3 lions etc.

We have visited the zoo for about two hours. We wrapped up and quickly gone back as Ethan was so tired. His whole face had become really red.(one uncle saw that Ethan's face was so red, he used his hat to wave at Ethan trying to cool him off). Shown below is the face after visiting the zoo.

Since Ethan sweat a lots, mummy has to wet a handkerchief to wipe his whole body and change his clothes. Not to forget also put some powder. Ethan fell into a slumber very fast. This time mummy brought the mattress and put it into the car. This is so that Ethan can comfortably sleep well. Unlike having to sleep in mummy's hand. He slept till we arrived home. When daddy carried him to our bed, he continued his sweet dream again. He really had a tiring day.

Counting machine

I guessed Ethan really likes counting as we can see that he will count non-stop everything. He can count everything that he sees. Every minute of the day we will hear him counting.
i) Like stepping up the staircase, he will count the steps whenever he steps up or down.
ii) When helping mummy hang the clothes, he will arrange all the hangers on the floor and count them before handing over to mummy
iii) Today when we were at the market, daddy asked him what is that? Hoping that he will say cow but the answer he gave was three cows after he counted the cow. Later on he amended his answer to four cows after he saw another cow not far away from these three. Mummy asked him to look up the sky, he gave mummy the answer - one moon.
iv) He even counted the cars parking at the roadside when he saw them from our bedroom window
v) Sometimes when seeing picture, he just count the things inside the picture
vi) Sometimes he will grasp our hand and count our fingers as well

Yesterday night when daddy wanted to tuck him to sleep after Ethan said good night to his papa and mama but his mouth still non stop counting from 1 to 20. According to daddy, Ethan can say the number up to 40 with some of the pronunciation not accurately. Hope that with his love for counting will make him love maths in future.

Excessive independence

On one hand we are glad that our son is independent. However, on the other hand we cannot tolerate with his independence. O really headache.

Recently Ethan shows another sign of independence. Mummy received the complaint from grandma that during the week we were in Shanghai, whenever people want to prepare milk for him, he will quickly run beside you and asked to close the lid of the tin of formula milk. Recently it gotten worst and he wants to hold the scoop and put the milk powder into his milk bottle. He wanted to prepare the milk by himself. He will cry out loud when we adults didn't let him do so. Besides this, mummy also gotten complaint from grandma that Ethan wanted to feed baby Wan Ting her milk. He took over the milk bottle from the adult and put into the mouth of the baby. Really terrible!!!

Today, mummy let you hold the water pipe again while mummy was busy cleaning the car porch due to lots of wings from dead inserts. Mummy opened the electric gate. What happen to you, you immediately walked outside the gate and go to water the plant. It was fun to watch over you watering the plant from one pot to another pot. Mummy wanted to take the water pipe from you but you just brushed away mother's hand. Seems like you really enjoy this work so next time this task will be passed to you, my son.

Stepping up the staircase like adult

These few days, we observed that Ethan is able to walk up the staircases just like we adults do. One feet one step of the stairs. Last time, Ethan usually will step one step and another feet will step at the same level before he headed for another stairs. We were glad that you have achieved another milestones.

Don't waste it - It's natural nutrition

After Ethan awaken from his nap time, normally mother will take away the cloth diaper. This is what mother will do before throwing the cloth diaper into the washing machine.

What mother will do next is to pour out the water from the bucket and water the plants and this is what mother get as a results.

The leaves looks really green and some more has flower blossom. See the besides this pot of flower also get the nutrition.

Well, mummy really likes this plant as mother takes care of it by putting the fertilizer every month and it has lots of flowers. But after Ethan was born, mother doesn't have much time to take care of it and it nearly die. Since mummy let Ethan wear the cloth diaper and done potty training. Whenever mummy wants to pour away the urine inside the potty, mother normally will use it to water the plants. In addition also use cloth diaper water. After one week of doing this. the plant got greener and greener. It is even better compared to the last time mummy put the fertilizer. All of this needs to thank Ethan for his urine. It is natural fertilizer so don't waste it. Helping the environment and promoting green. Yahoo.....

p/s: maybe some of people will think of this as disgusting but to mother it waste of natural resources and pure organic fertilizer.

Fun with flashcard

Nowadays Ethan is high enough to take some of the things mummy put on top of the cabinet. One of these things is the flashcard. He read aloud the alphabets and the words. Like A for apple, B for ball etc. Besides these alphabets flashcards, it also consists of number flashcard. Glad to hear that Ethan now can pronounce the word seven correctly.

He really have some fun and enjoy time with these flashcards. Unexpected result.

Soft Toy

See these two boxes full of soft toys. Mostly they are the toy from Singapore Airline. We had collected the toy when Ethan was just a few months old until now. We hope that he will love to play with them but unfortunately he does not really like them. Even I tore the plastic away and put the toy inside his crib, he still opt for his own puppet monkey. Mummy did open the boxes few times to put the new toys inside and hope he will choose some of them. But what he did was just helped me to put the toy inside the box. Besides these still have another box filled with the activity pack from Singapore Airline too.

Now the problem is that the toys kept on increasing and mummy ran out of boxes to store them. Well people will ask why not just stop collecting it? Well, it is mainly because mummy cannot resist the attraction of the toys especially the recent one of "Power Puff Girls". Mummy had a few collection of this "Power Puff Girls" cup, thermos etc. So now it becomes a habit for mummy to keep this toy as souvenir whenever daddy has his business trips. Mummy did give some of these toys away to other people too.

So from these boxes, you can imagine that daddy actually did travel a lot for this past few years.

Baby bed

The agent from Shanghai emailed daddy saying that the landlord management managed to find a baby bed for Ethan. The picture of the bed will be sent to us later.

Actually we already figure out a way to settle this issue, we wanted to request the management to remove the bed and just put the mattress on the floor. We will then buy the bedrail to protect Ethan from falling down. But now seeing that we can get the bed, so daddy just said why not we wait for the photo and only decide which option we want to take.

For mummy definitely opt for putting the mattress on the floor as tonight Ethan fell down again from our bed. Uncountable how many times Ethan fell down from the bed under the care of daddy. So daddy was scolded by mummy. We have to monitor Ethan again in the next 24 hours. Poor kid.

Correcting the Saa to Seven

From the previous blog, we did mention that Ethan tends to pronounce "Seven" as "Saaa". Tonight we tried to correct his pronunciation by breaking the word seven into two sounds like asked him to follow us to say "se" then follow by "ven". Ethan actually followed it and pronounced the word seven correctly. We happily praised him until he felt like up in the sky. Of course he was jubilant at his success. We constantly corrected it when he tried to said the word as "saa" once again. So now when we show him the number " 7" he will pronounce it correctly but when asked him to count from 1 to 10 , he will still use the "Saa" but we had to stop him and asked him to pronounce the correct one. Pray hard that he will forget "Saa" and only remember "seven". Now what we are left with is the need to correct his 1,4 and 14. Not to forget the word "blue" also.

Buying New Digital Camera

First we thought that we wanted to buy the new camera when we arrive in Shanghai but after giving it a deep thought we decided to have it in Malaysia. Few points have made us bought it here:-
i) PC fair normally has cheaper or special deal, free gifts especially on the last day which we don't know whether can we get it in Shanghai or not.
ii) Not familiar with Shanghai yet so not sure where to buy the camera

We bought this Canon PowerShot G9 as we wanted to snap the photo when we are in Shanghai and also visit other places. The old camera can still be used but very difficult to snap Ethan nowadays as he just cannot stand still and let you take his photo. This new one has image stabilizer feature.

Tomorrow will try this new camera on Ethan as we bought it quite late at the last day of the PC fair. Need to charge the battery first.

Bonding with this new game ??

See from this photo, we can see that both father and son were picking up the small stones and throw into the drain. Don't know what kind of game this is?

New actions

Seems like Ethan learned a few new actions while his parents were in Shanghai. Nowadays when you say "rainbow" he will do this pose. Don't know why and how the rainbow looks like that from his point of view.

When we say butterfly, both his hand will flatter like the butterfly's wing. Very difficult to take picture of butterfly flying.

How about the Penguin walk? He will walk like the way Japanese lady wearing the wooden sandal with both hand fingers open really wide and made the sound "chi chi". His own interpretation of penguin sound.

Rushing to meet you

When we arrived at our home in Penang at 4.30pm, we quickly taken a bath, set the timer for the light and then headed on to Kedah to meet our son. We have been away from him for about 5 days. Mother did call you when she was at Shanghai but cannot understand what you were talking about. According to grandma you were a nice boy at the first few days but then turned into naughty boy these past two days, maybe you missed your parents?

Shopping List

Today we went to "IKEA" in Shanghai and found out there are lot of things that mother will buy when we arrive end next month. First is the easel. The price is quite reasonable i.e. RMB149 which converted to MYR75. Actually mother has been thinking of buying one in Malaysia and ship it to Shanghai but now there is no need to do this. Besides this, bib, fork spoon, bowl etc are so colorful here, guessed Ethan will like them.

Our agent said that the first day we arrive in Shanghai the first things we will do is "SHOP , SHOP, SHOP". Yup, especially the food stuffs, household things and don't forget getting kid's bed for Ethan. Currently our agent is bargaining with the landlord of our apartment to provide the bed for Ethan with the partition surrounding it. Hoped that she will be successful in pushing the landlord management.

Decision making....

After we had looked at so many different types of town house and apartments. Seems like daddy had a preferred apartment in Shanghai which was mummy introduced to him before our preview trip. Today we took a short tour view in the international school located near the apartment we preferred. Well, the environment is not bad and they are bilingual language inside the class but mummy expected that mostly will be in English communication.

We asked whether the waiting list is still available or not. Yes, it still have but no many places left. We didn't put the name yet as that time we haven't revisited the apartment to made the final decision and also we don't have RMB2000 in the meantime(this cost is the application fee). Another reason was we still have another local kindergarten that we wanted to visit.

So after revisiting the apartment again, daddy finally made the decision that we will be staying in this Season Villas apartment. Few reasons have made us chose this apartment:
i) The rental is within our budget
ii) Nearby daddy's office
iii) The green environment inside the community
iv) It is serviced apartment so will have one week 3 times the cleaner lady will come to do cleaning of the apartment so mummy need not employ the "Ayi"(Chinese maid)
v) Shutter bus goes to the subway, shopping area and etc
vi) Inside the compound there is the international kindergarten so mother can just walk/cycle Ethan to school

Even we didn't finalize Ethan's kindergarten yet but the chances is very high because we chose the kindergarten inside this community. Well, the intake will in this coming August and the kindi will give the priority to the inside resident as we still have one month to think about it.

Shopping in Shanghai

Today we asked the local agent to bring us to Carrefour to have a look at the prices for formula milk. Wah! It was really scary and crazy the prices. PediaSure in Shanghai is RMB208 per tin and it is only 900g. I can get this price at Malaysia for 1.8kg per tin. Now we have some problem as China government doesn't allow oversea people to ship formula milk into China. According to agent, china government does not encourage people to ship food into the country. If you insist to ship food item, it might take few months to inspect the stuffs so our whole shipment would be on hold because of the food. So the agent advises us to buy the food in Shanghai instead of bringing over. For electric appliances, the government will incurred some tax on the electric appliance you send. So the cost you have to paid is more than the cost if you buy in Shanghai. Seems like there are a lot of restriction.

For the rice, they have local rice and Thailand rice but they don't have the unpolished rice which recently we can easily find in Malaysia. For fish, I don't know how to settle as they don't have the fish from sea. The fish and also shell sold here are all from the river. Headache trying to think of how to find the fish that Ethan eat in Malaysia.

Really totally different culture from Malaysia. Hope that our whole family can survive in Shanghai.

International School or not????

Today Ethan's parents started to have the search for apartments with the local agent provided by daddy's company. Well, we went to view a few places and so far only 3 places have the kindergarten inside the community.

One was Montessori Children's House and we had taken a short tour view with the principal who explained about the classes to us. For Ethan's age even though he was born in 2005 but because he is a year end baby so he has to enter the junior class which is for baby starting from 1 to 3 years old. So basically they are playing, listening to stories, learn some alphabets, numbers and etc. For the class of 3 to 4 years old, they are learning to write, do some art work and etc. The principal told us that they only accept maximum 15 kids per class. One teacher and two assistants in each class. So the ratio will be 1 adult take care of 5 kids. Medium of teaching is all in English.

Second was Yew Chung International School. They took 3 villas space to form a kindergarten. Since we have no appointment so hope that tomorrow we will have the chance to view and talk to the headmaster.

Another one we didn't go and look at it because of the rain. Mainly also due to the possibility of us choosing to stay in this community is extremely low. Not saying that the apartment is no good, it is because the facilities are still not yet ready. As the service apartment, Pinnacle Century Park is new so some of the facilities are not yet ready.

At night time, mummy went to the Internet to search for other international schools in Shanghai surrounding the area we plan to stay. Well, the school fees is really one of our concern. Maybe if using USD to convert to RMB might still be quite reasonable. However, using it to convert to MYR, it is crazy expensive! One need about MYR5k to 6k per month for 5 full time basis ie 8.30am til 3.30pm. Daddy said it is crazy to pay so much money just to let Ethan play. Besides the money concern, there is another issue which is that the international school mainly focus in English which mummy doesn't like. Mother wants to let Ethan learn Chinese while we are here in Shanghai. Mother feels that Chinese language is more difficult to learn compared to English. So maybe have to inform the local relocation agent to search for the local kindergarten for us as well.

No update about Ethan

Well, from 14th to 18th this period there will be no update of this blog about Ethan as his parents are in Shanghai searching for apartment.

Exercise before bedtime

Recently after bathing, Ethan will switch on the radio by himself and dance.

He will never miss this part as it has become his routine task. He will dance and sing happily together. Weird thing is that he opts for the Japanese song against his kid song. Don't know why recently he does not want to listen to his kid song??

Heart shape

After teaching the shape of the heart using hands, every time Ethan sees the book with the shape of heart, he will use his hand to do like this.

Besides him doing it, he will request the people surrounding him to do the same action.

Countdown

This morning mummy tried to explain to Ethan that we are going to leave him at Grandpa's house for about 5 days because mummy has to travel with daddy to Shanghai. Seems like Ethan did not really understand as mummy told him that mummy and daddy will take airplane to oversea. At the end, Ethan responded to me by saying : "Papa, airplane". Initially, mummy had struggled whether to accept the preview-trip to Shanghai or not. However daddy insisted that mummy tag along so that mummy can give her opinion about the house. After all we have to live there for a year. Recently Ethan had developed very close attachment to mother. For daddy, there is no problem as daddy always have business trip and our son is already used to it. Remembered back that daddy's first business trip apart from Ethan was when he was still 1 week plus. Till now daddy had uncountable business trip from the day Ethan was born till now.

Well, if counting this trip, this is the forth trip that mummy had to leave Ethan at grandpa's house. First trip was when we visited Taiwan, that time Ethan was still not yet 1 year old. According grandma, Ethan cried loudly 3 times per day looking for mummy. Grandma had a very hard time trying to comfort him. He cried until fallen asleep. 2nd trip was when we visited Japan last year at end of March for personal sakura viewing trip. This time, it was ok with Ethan. Seeing that Japan trip was ok then mummy travel again with daddy to Taiwan for Computex. That time was not ok, Ethan was looking for mummy again.

Eggplant????

Evening time mother let Ethan gone to garden again to do some exercises. Well, our home garden space is not big enough to let Ethan run the way like he has done at grandpa's house. No choice, houses in Penang are really expensive.

Ethan, while letting you cycle your tricycle, you suddenly pointed to somewhere and said "eggplant". Mother was wondering what is that as you kept on saying eggplant. Mummy had to ask you to lead and show mother. O my god! You are referring to the stones in our garden. You thought that the stone is an egg as its shape looked like egg. Mummy had to correct you by saying that it is "stone". You kept on saying "egg" but mummy kept on correcting you. Well, have to let you feel the stone by picking one small one and teach you that this is "stone" instead of "egg". After you felt it and threw it, you began to say it correctly.

Touching the heart

Today mummy had a headache and wanted to take a short nap before you wake up. However when mummy entered the room, you were already playing with your books. No choice but have to feed you milk first. After you finished your milk, mummy told you that mummy's head is pain pain and wanted to sleep. Asking you to be good boy and play inside your crib. So in order to keep you busy, mummy add additional three books inside your crib.

After mummy slept for a while, you took mother's purse and said money. You explored mother's purse and found out there was one plaster inside. You called mother from your crib and put your hands out of the crib and tried to grasp mummy. Mummy had to hand over her hand. Then what did you do? You put the plaster and stick on mummy's hand and said "pain pain". So sweet of you to want to help mummy relieve the pain. But you were putting on the wrong part. Later mummy didn't know what the song you sang but it had really made mother laughed non stop and relieved some of the pain in mother's head.

Grandpa Birthday

Today, daddy come to Kedah to fetch us back to Penang. It was 5 days that Ethan didn't see his dad as daddy had a business trip oversea. Before we went back to Penang, we had a small celebration for Grandpa's birthday. Inside the picture we have additional family member, she is baby Wan Ting.